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His childhood was spent in Hamburg and then St. Petersburg, where his father Martin de Lesseps (1730–1807) was the FrenchConsul General.[3] His mother was Anna Caysergues (1730–1823). He had a sister Lise de Lesseps (1769–1840), married in 1788 to Louis Maurice Taupin de Magnitot (1757–1823), and a brother Mathieu de Lesseps (Hamburg, 4 May 1774 – Tunis, 28 December 1832), married to Catherine de Grevigné (Málaga, 11 June 1774 – Paris, 27 January 1853), the parents of Ferdinand de Lesseps.

He was appointed Vice-Consul of France in Kronstadt and once had to intervene with the crew of the French ship Uranie of Dunkirk who had largely deserted. Noticed by France's Ambassador to Russia, Mr de Ségur, he was entrusted to carry important news to Versailles. There he met with Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, second in command of the La Pérouse expedition, who had the respect of Louis XVI. La Pérouse asked the Minister of Marine and the Colonies, Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, marquis de Castries to add Lesseps to the expedition as a Russian interpreter as the intended route took them into Russian territory in the north-west Pacific Ocean. His father should have been consulted but there was no time for that, so Castries appointed him to be vice-consul to succeed his father. Instead of returning directly to St. Petersburg, Lesseps would take the much longer route with La Pérouse to the north-west Pacific and then travel overland.[4]

The frigatesBoussole and Astrolabe left Brest on 1 August 1785.[5] De Lesseps set out on the latter ship commanded by de Langle.

While in port, La Pérouse received orders to proceed as quickly as possible to Australia to investigate a rumored British settlement at Botany Bay. Before leaving, however, he needed to get reports of the voyage back to Paris. Since ice would soon close the port for months, the only option that would keep the material under French control was to send them overland with de Lesseps.

The ships left on 30 September 1787, and de Lesseps left a week later with Kassloff Ougrenin, the governor of Okhotsk, traveling 160 km across the peninsula to Bolsheretsk, a journey that took two weeks, including the building of a raft to cross the Bolchaiareka River. From there they hoped to sail to Okhotsk; when that wasn't possible, they decided to follow the coast around the top of the Sea of Okhotsk, a distance of 1600 km. The party stayed in Bolsheretsk until the end of January while a convoy of 35 sleighs was assembled, but both the weather and Kassloff's official duties slowed progress. De Lesseps chose to separate from the main group, reaching Yamsk at the end of April. Speeded by a road, he reached Okhotsk on 8 May.

Lesseps crossing the Kamchatka Peninsula by dog sled

De Lesseps set off promptly for Yakutsk, 1200 km inland, but as the weather warmed and the tracks through the snow turned to mud, the sleighs were bogged down, so he dragged them back to Okhotsk.

On his return he was able to buy a few horses which he described as "frightful, half-starved beasts" before setting off again on 6 June. On 5 July he sailed up the Lena River to Lensk and then Kirensk; at the time both towns consisted of little more than a few log cabins. As it was now mid-summer, the water was no longer freezing, but clouds of midges swarmed near the shore. The boats broke up on the rapids, but de Lesseps was able to continue on horseback to Irkutsk, near the south-western end of Lake Baikal.

However, this was not the end of his journey. After delivering La Pérouse's reports to the French Ambassador, he learned that he was wanted in Paris, so he continued on through Riga, Königsberg and Berlin, reaching Paris on 17 October. The new Secretary of State for the Navy, César Henri, comte de La Luzerne, met him at Versailles, where he met Louis XVI, was greeted as a hero, and was appointed Consul at Kronstadt.[7]

Given the subsequent loss of both ships, by leaving at Petropavlovsk, de Lesseps became the only man to survive the expedition.[8]

His appointment to Kronstadt kept him clear of the violence of the French Revolution, but after being sent to Turkey as First Secretary, he was imprisoned. Later he was part of the disastrous retreat from Moscow by Napoleon's defeated army in 1812. Finally he was posted to Lisbon, where spent the next 20 years until his death in 1834.[9]

Aimée de Lesseps (1794 – ?), married in Lisbon, Santa Catarina, on 15 April 1822 to Pierre Geoffroi Blanchet

Marie Fortunée de Lesseps (1798 – ?), married in Lisbon, Santa Catarina, on 10 January 1820 to Charles Joseph Lagau

Lucie Virginie de Lesseps (1801–1876), married first in Lisbon, Santa Catarina, on 5 November 1823 to Charles Joseph Gautier, and married a second time in Lisbon on 7 October 1834 to Julien François Lecesne